We Finally Got It All Right
by acaelousqueadcentrum
Summary: Prompt: "I Choose You" by Sara Bareilles. A happy ending. And Holly's POV.


**I.**

_Let the bough break, let it come down crashing  
__Let the sun fade out to a dark sky  
__I can't say I'd even notice it was absent  
__Cause I could live by the light in your eyes_

_I'll unfold before you  
__What I've strung together  
__The very first words  
__Of a lifelong love letter_

_Tell the world that we finally got it all right  
__I choose you  
__I will become yours and you will become mine  
__I choose you  
__I choose you_

San Francisco is beautiful.

San Francisco is full of new people and new things to do and see.

San Francisco is the loneliest, the most alone, the most lost that she has ever been.

This was supposed to be her dream, this job in this city. This was supposed to be everything she'd ever wanted, the start of the rest of her life.

Instead it just feels like the end.

She should be mad. Holly wants to be mad. Wants to rage and yell and tear apart things at how wrong everything has gone. She wants to rip out the parts of her that turn toward the empty side of the bed in the middle of the night, that pull down two mugs of coffee in the morning. That part of her heart that lifts and hopes whenever she catches a flash of pale blonde hair out of the corner of her eye. The part of her that says "no" when she means "yes," that says "no" when Rhonda from the gym asks her out for coffee, or Emily from the lab suggests in a low and sultry voice that they go get drinks sometime soon.

She'd cut it all out if she could, every part of her that Gail has left a mark upon. Every part of her that is still terribly, hopelessly in love with Gail.

She wants to be mad, wants it so badly.

But she can't.

Holly can't be mad because there's no one to be mad at.

Not Gail. Not Gail who is finally, beautifully, opening herself up to the world, letting that sweet and gentle heart of hers off its leash.

Not Sophie, Sophie with the quiet laugh and big, beaming smile. The little girl who so quickly captured Gail's heart. Who so quickly laid claim to Holly's own.

She can't even be mad at herself, because Holly knows that she made the right decision. Stepping away, leaving—it was the right decision. Because as much as she and Gail loved each other, as much as Holly knew without a doubt that there could never be anyone else for her heart, they couldn't have started over again.

Not then. Not with Holly leaving for another country. Not with Gail trying to adopt Sophie.

Too much stood between them.

Too many things that couldn't be compromised on.

Too many opportunities for regrets to drive them apart.

And so the decision was mutual, the decision to go their separate ways. To part as friends and former lovers.

For Gail to continue her quest to adopt Sophie and become the mom she's ready to be.

For Holly to move and start her life in San Francisco.

They'd still be friends, they promised each other.

And they are.

They are.

Gail skypes twice a week, every week. And she and Sophie share all the stories they've accumulated since their last call. Things like how Gail accidentally broke the microwave, or screamed when she tried to fix the sink and some gross pipe water dripped into her mouth. Or how Sophie is fitting into her new home and her new school, how she was elected to take care of the class hamster.

Holly sits and listens and watches, absolutely in love. In love and so far away.

One time, as they were deciding on what color to paint their new kitchen, they enlisted Holly to help break their tie, showing her their selected paint samples and each making a case for why Holly should pick theirs. And Gail, adorably, had pouted when Holly sided with Sophie's butter-yellow color instead of the officer's tomato-red.

After their call the next weekend, when they triumphantly took the laptop around the kitchen to show off its shiny new yellow walls (and their paint-covered selves), Holly spent an hour crying in her new apartment. Alone.

They made the right decision. She knows this.

But she didn't know it would be so hard to live with.

She didn't know that she'd be splitting herself in two, that she'd be living two lives.

Her body in San Francisco.

Her mind, her heart, her soul with Gail and Sophie, with her girls.

And so she lives her half-life in the gorgeous city by the bay. She goes to work, she goes out for drinks with her coworkers. She says "thank you" politely and then throws numbers away when she gets home. She sits in her big armchair and drinks California wine late into the evening, wakes early and goes for long runs along roads and bridges that only take her further and further from her home.

And then one day she wakes up, and she knows she can't do it anymore. Can't be half a person, can't live half a life.

This time there is no choice.

This time there will be love and happiness, this time there will be home and family.

This time she chooses Gail, chooses Gail and Sophie.

This time she chooses the loves of her life.

* * *

**II.**

_There was a time when I would have believed them  
__If they told me you could not come true  
__Just love's illusion  
__But then you found me and everything changed  
__And I believe in something again_

_My whole heart  
__Will be yours forever  
__This is a beautiful start  
__To a lifelong love letter_

_Tell the world that we finally got it all right  
__I choose you  
__I will become yours and you will become mine  
__I choose you  
__I choose you_

Coming back to Toronto didn't fix everything.

But it was a start.

A real start this time, the start that San Francisco was supposed to have been.

Holly didn't tell anyone her plans, didn't tell anyone that she leased an apartment only a few miles from Gail and Sophie's little house. She didn't tell anyone that she quit her job, that she broke her rental agreement and packed up all her things again, for the second time in less than a year.

But one morning, a week or so after she'd moved all the boxes into her small, one-bedroom apartment, after she groveled and begged and damn near bribed her old boss for her job back, after she handled all the day-to-day things like getting a new driver's license, getting everything in order at the bank, filling her empty cupboards and fridge with groceries …

One morning after all that, Holly climbed the steps of Gail's front porch and took a deep breath.

One morning, back, and for good, Holly rang Gail's doorbell and waited for her life to start again.

The commotion was instantaneous, a small girl's voice shouting and a clatter of footsteps.

And then the door opened, and there was Gail. And a small girl, someone Holly had only met once but grown to love over Skype conversations, and pictures, and late night stories from the officer.

"Miss Holly," Sophie asked first, Gail's confusion leaving the blonde momentarily silent.

"Miss Holly," the little girl said again, this time a shout, and moved past Gail to wrap her arms around Holly's waist.

"Hey, there, Sophie," Holly answered, dropping down to hug Gail's daughter tightly.

Seeing her daughter held close in the arms of the woman she loved, Gail regained her senses.

"Holly," she started, and reached out to touch the brunette, almost as if she didn't believe the woman was real, didn't believe that Holly could be standing there before her.

"Hol," she said, "what are you doing here? Why didn't you tell us you were going to be in town?"

Holly rose, keeping one hand on Sophie's shoulder, unwilling to let the little girl go.

"I'm not in town," she said, and stepped closer to the blonde.

But Gail still looked confused, so Holly pulled her close, pulled Gail and Sophie into a big hug on their front porch.

"I'm not in town," Holly repeated, "I'm home. I'm home, Gail."

She heard Gail's breath hitch, and then she felt the blonde's hold tighten around her, and she knew that everything was going to be okay.

They'd all be okay, the three of them.

They'd take their time, they'd move slow. For their sakes and for Sophie's.

It wasn't easy.

But it was worth it.

And now it's been a year and a half since Holly moved back.

Eighteen months filled with family dinners at Gail's house, movie nights with Sophie. With homework and chores and bedtime stories. A year and a half of sharing babysitters, or trading kids, with Steve and Traci for what Sophie and Leo call "grown-up dates."

It's been full of sleepovers at Holly's when Gail has to work night shifts, and Holly making them all breakfast the morning after her own sleepovers in Gail's bed. There have been tears and disagreements, and apologies and hugs. There have been nightmares and therapy sessions and home visits from Sophie's social worker.

It's been a year and a half, and today Holly is as nervous as the day she stood on Gail's porch and rang her bell.

More, even.

Because today she's going to ask a very important person a very important question.

She's hanging out with Sophie, because the fifth-grader has off of school and Gail got called in to work for a case she'd worked on earlier in the week. So Holly took the day off from work and she and Sophie went to the aquarium; Sophie's latest career plan included becoming a marine biologist. The two of them had spent most of the morning looking at all the different marine animals. If Gail had been with them she would have laughed as her girls geeked out over the exhibits.

But now they're out to lunch, and Holly takes a nervous breath as Sophie digs into the apple slices that she ordered with her cheeseburger.

They're sitting at a picnic table in the park near Gail and Sophie's home. It's a gorgeous day in April, with the sun shining and the temperature just warm enough to finally leave their heavy winter coats behind in favor of a lighter jacket. While she eats, Sophie's flipping through the pages of the "real, grown-up science book" that Holly bought for her in the gift shop, the one with pictures of all different kinds of marine animals, and diagrams of their organs and maps of where they can be found. The little girl looks delighted as she pours over the words and images, and Holly knows that today is the day.

She knows that this is one of those moments she'll remember forever.

This is one of those moments that mark the before and the after.

"Hey, Soph," she asks, reaching across the table to lay a hand over the girl's small one.

"Hmm," the girl responds with a mouthful of apple.

Holly smiles.

"Finish chewing, and then I have a question for you," Holly says, and laughs as Sophie swallows dramatically and then takes a big drink of milk.

"Ahhhh," the little girl says with a big, satisfied sigh, and then looks curiously at the doctor sitting across the table.

Holly reaches across with a napkin to wipe away at a bit of mustard on Sophie's chin.

"So, Sophie," she starts, and smiles at the girl's Gail-like "what" in response.

"I want to talk to you about something important," she continues, "something about you and Gail and me."

Sophie crooks her head to the side and looks at her, she's such a smart little girl.

"Okaaay," she says slowly with big, curious eyes.

Holly takes another deep breath, and looks into those deep, dark eyes. "I love Gail—your mom, I mean. I love your mom and I love you. And I want us to be a family," she says. "You and Gail and I, all of us."

Sophie is quiet, and so Holly continues, reaching into her pocket as she talks.

"I want to ask your mom to marry me, but first I want to ask you. Because I'm not just asking Gail to marry me, I'm asking you too, Sophie. So," Holly says, and pulls out two jewelry boxes from her pocket, "can we be a family, Soph, you and me and your mom?"

Sophie sits for a moment, just looking back and forth between Holly and the boxes on the table.

"Can I see," Sophie asks, with what Holly recognizes as excitement in her voice.

Holly nudges one forward, "This one is for you," she says, opening the box and pulling out a gold chain with a heart-shaped locket on it. She opens the locket, and shows Sophie the two pictures inside.

"This side has one of you and your mom," she says, "because even if she can't be here with you anymore, she's always watching over you, and she's always loving you." She's quiet for a moment as Sophie looks at the picture, and then wipes away a tear from the little girl's eye. "And this side has a picture of you and me and Gail, because we both love you so much."

"And this," Holly says, "is for Gail. Do you think she'll like it?" The ring is simple, a platinum band and a single emerald-cut diamond. The moment she saw it she knew it was the one.

She thinks that Sophie agrees, especially when the little girl gives a big "Wow" and reaches out a single finger to touch the stone.

"So," Holly says, pulling Sophie's eyes away from the jewelry and back to her, "what do you think, Soph? Can we be a family?"

But Sophie doesn't answer. Instead, she slips out from the picnic table and comes to stand next to Holly. And for a moment, Holly is unsure, is afraid that this has all gone terribly wrong. But then Sophie wraps her up in a tight hug, and whispers an "I love you" into her ear, and Holly feels her heart soar.

After the hug, after Holly fastens the necklace around the little girl's neck, she places a kiss on her forehead and then asks her last question with a wide and happy smile that reaches all the way to her eyes.

"So, Sophie," Holly says, "want to help me ask your mom?"

* * *

**III.**

_We are not perfect  
__We'll learn from our mistakes  
__And as long as it takes  
__I will prove my love to you_

_I am not scared of the elements  
__I am under-prepared, but I am willing  
__And even better  
__I get to be the other half of you_

_Tell the world that we finally got it all right  
__I choose you  
__I will become yours and you will become mine  
__I choose you  
__I choose you  
__I choose you_

Holly wakes early, unable to sleep on such a big day.

She's always been like this, always unable to sleep through the night when she knows such good, amazing, wonderful things are waiting for her in the morning.

As a kid, she was always up at the crack of dawn on Christmas, always eager to see the brightly wrapped presents and the reindeer hoof-prints trailing through the snow.

As an adult, she's not much different.

She barely slept the night before her wedding to Gail. Some of that might have been the lack of her love's warmth next to her own, as Gail and Sophie had spent the night at the Peck household. But most of it was just the excitement and the anticipation of committing herself to Gail and Sophie.

It had been such a beautiful autumn day. Sunny and warm. The leaves were at the height of their change, and the world was colored in such beautiful oranges and yellows and reds. They'd gotten married in the Peck's back yard, in the gazebo right in the middle of the garden. Gail had worn a gorgeous champagne-colored dress, a sheath-dress that exposed the strong muscles of her back and pooled at her feet. Holly had opted for black tuxedo pants and an ivory-colored fitted shirt. But it was Sophie who stole the day in an adorable rose pink dress and her cute braids.

The wedding had been small and simple. Just their closest friends and family. They'd chosen not to have their fathers give them away, instead they'd walked down the aisle together with Sophie between them holding their hands. And after they'd exchanged their vows, after they'd slid the rings onto each other's fingers, Holly had turned to Sophie with a loving smile.

And then Holly made her vows to Sophie, and fastened an engraved gold bracelet around Sophie's wrist.

The rest of the night they'd spent celebrating with their family, their friends. They'd danced, they'd partied, they'd made toasts and laughed and cried and smiled.

It had been a good day, one of the best days, and when she and Gail had finally collapsed into bed that night, too exhausted to do anything but cling to each other, Holly pulled her wife close and whispered "I love yous" into Gail's ear until the blonde slipped into sleep.

The day she officially became Sophie's mom, the day they signed the second-parent adoption papers, Holly had woken up with the birds. Gail had mumbled at her to come back to bed, but she couldn't. Her belly was fully of butterflies, happy and nervous butterflies.

Their lawyer had told them that it was all a formality; that the judge would sign off on the adoption with no problems. But still, Holly worried. The "what ifs" ran through her mind and down into her fingertips, and when Gail finally meandered out into the kitchen a few hours later, she found her wife sitting at the table drumming her fingers anxiously on the table, staring out into the back yard.

Gail had come up behind her and wrapped sleep-warm arms around Holly's shoulders, dropping a kiss on her wife's head.

"Hey," she'd said, "I know you're nervous. I was a nervous wreck on adoption day. But it's going to be fine. Judge Wilson is going to sign the paperwork and then you'll officially be Sophie's mom."

And when Holly didn't respond, Gail continued.

"But you know what, Hol," she'd said, "that paper? It doesn't change anything. You're already Sophie's mom. You're the one reading the Harry Potter series with her. And you're the one who almost fell out of the stands cheering at Field Day. And last time she had a nightmare she couldn't go back to sleep until you made her your special tea and rubbed her back. Oh, and last month when she had the flu? You were the one who held her hair back. That's mom-stuff."

Gail pulled Holly's chair back and walked around to sit in her lap.

"You're already Sophie's mom, Hol. So stop worrying and give me a kiss before our daughter wakes up and wants breakfast."

Holly had done just that, and Gail had been right. The judge had signed the paperwork, and then they'd taken a picture with him. A copy of that picture sat on Holly's desk at work now, and in the moments when the darkness of her job threatened to overwhelm, Holly sat and looked at the faces of her wife and daughter, their wide smiles, on the day they officially became a family.

The day that everything and nothing changed.

Today everything's going to change again.

Yet today, unlike before, Holly's not the only one awake. Gail's still asleep, of course, and when she checks on Sophie she finds that the recent teenager is fast asleep as well.

But when she checks the second bedroom, she sees a little figure hunched over in the corner of the bed, knees drawn up to his chest and his little body shaking.

"Hey, Mateo," she says gently, "what are you doing up so early?"

She knows why he's awake, can smell the harsh tang of urine in the air.

A year ago, when she and Gail decided to expand their family, to bring another child into their home, they were both adamant that they adopt. They didn't want Sophie to feel like she was being replaced by a biological child, and they were both aware of how many children were in the system, in need of a family.

Mateo had come to them seven months ago, an emergency foster placement that they'd fallen immediately in love with. The six-year-old was small for his age, with fine black hair and wide green eyes. He'd been removed from an abusive home, and hadn't talked for the first two months he was in their home. But slowly, with lots of gentle love and support, with reassurances and stability, he'd come out of his shell. And the bedwetting, which had been a nightly occurrence for months, mostly disappeared.

Except on the nights he had nightmares.

Or the nights he was nervous or anxious or scared.

"Hey, buddy," Holly says again, coming further into the room. "You okay? Why don't we get you cleaned up, and then we'll change your sheets and have some tea, okay?"

She got Mateo washed up and then changed his sheets and tossed them into the washer with his wet pajamas before bringing two cups of warm tea to the couch and sitting down next to him. For a little while they just sat, each drinking their milky, sweet tea. It reminded Holly of when she was a little girl, and her mom would make her tea and sit with her when she wasn't feeling well. Now that she's a mom, she does the same for her kids. She's coaxed Sophie back to sleep with mugs of tea that are mostly warm milk with a hint of honey. She's brought steaming mugs to her wife on the rare occasions when some bug or virus has brought the police officer down.

And over the past few months, she's spent many a night with Mateo on the couch, hoping that her gentle words and the soothing drink will help the boy realize that he's not in trouble, that they're not going to send him away for having an accident.

Because of that, she knows that he'll need to just sit and be quiet with her for a little while before he's ready to talk.

But eventually, he does.

"Do we have to go today," he asks, his voice small in the early morning quiet.

She puts their empty mugs down on the coffee table and pulls him closer to her, right into her lap, swinging her legs up onto the cushions.

"We don't have to go today," Holly answers as he lays his head against her chest, "not if you don't want to, Mateo. Do you not want to go to the courthouse today?"

She runs her fingers through his damp hair.

"Is that what's bothering you, buddy," Holly asks, already knowing his answer. He's been more and more nervous lately, and some of his old behavior has returned. For the most part, she and Gail haven't said anything about it, beyond trying to reassure him about what going to the courthouse meant. But still, Mateo has been afraid that everything in his life is going to fall apart again, and his nightmares have started up again.

He nods and Holly's heart aches for the things her little boy—because whether they go to the courthouse today or not, he's already her little boy—has experienced in his short life.

"Do you want me to tell you what's going to happen today, Teo," she asks, hoping that hearing about how the proceedings with the judge, their old friend Judge Wilson again, will help to ease his fears.

He nods again, and she starts to tell him. She tells him about Sophie's adoption days, both of them. About how the judge had asked them if they wanted to be a family, and when they'd all said yes, they'd signed the papers. She's glossing over a lot of the details, but that's okay. Hopefully he'll hear the most important part, that today she and her wife and their daughter are going to stand up in front of a judge and tell the whole world that they choose him, Mateo. That they want him to be a part of their family, forever.

Her words lull him into a light sleep, and when Gail wakes up and goes looking for her wife, she finds Teo and Holly dozing together on the couch. And Sophie, who must have woken up and joined them after, curled up next to them.

There will be pictures and celebrations later, Gail knows. But this picture, her wife and daughter and son all asleep together on the couch, will be the one she hangs up in her locker at work. The one she chooses to remind her of how much she's loved, how much there is to love in her life.


End file.
